Olympic girls use 19-0 run to down North Kitsap

Olympic's Ashli Payne fights for possesion of a rebound with North Kitsap's Molly Lemmon and Emmalee Nold during the first half of their game on Tuesday, February 5, 2013. (MEEGAN M. REID / KITSAP SUN)

One minute, the Olympic Trojans were down. A few minutes later, they were up. Way up.

Olympic reeled off 19 straight points over a six-minute span during the first two quarters as the Trojans defeated the North Kitsap Vikings 62-48 in their Olympic League matchup.

The Trojans were down 10-7 before their run put them up 26-10 early in the second quarter. Though the Vikings regained their scoring touch in the second half, they couldn’t get the lead into single digits the rest of the way.

Senior post Ashli Payne led the Trojans with a season-high 30 points and 12 rebounds, including nine points in that 19-point burst.

“We played real well as a team,” Payne said. “We have lots of chemistry. We did not play well the last time we played them.”

The win improved Olympic’s record to 12-3 in the Olympic League, which ties the Trojans with Bremerton for second place, and 15-4 overall. North Kitsap (10-8, 9-6) holds on to fourth place. The top five teams advance to districts next week.

Down 10-7 midway through the first quarter, Olivia Williams started things off with a lay up to cut the lead to one. Payne followed with a 3-pointer to put Olympic ahead 12-10. A basket by Williams, another 3 by Payne, a short shot by Charlett Timoteo gave the Trojans a nine-point lead. Then Payne drew a foul on a lay up for a three-point play to put Olympic up 22-10 at the end of the quarter.

A putback by Shania Anderson and a basket by Williams made it 26-10 before North Kitsap finally scored on a free throw.

“The key to that was team play,” Olympic coach Laurie Shaw said. “We turned up the pressure on defense and looked for the right shots at the right time.”

“That kind of reminded me of the Kingston game,” North Kitsap coach Tim French said. “We fell behind by a similar score, and we couldn’t come back from it.”

Anderson, a 5-foot-6 junior guard, put up 15 points for Olympic, making 7 of 11 shots from the field.

“Going forward, it can’t be a one-woman show,” Shaw said. “We got to get contributions from lots of players.”

Olympic made 24 of 49 field goals. Shaw liked the way her team made good shot selections.

“We have a saying in the locker room,” Shaw said. “It’s our WWW rule. ‘Where you shoot and when you shoot equals wins.’”

Olympic closes out the regular season at home against Port Angeles on Friday. PA defeated Port Townsend on Tuesday 51-35 to clinch the Olympic League title. The Roughriders beat Olympic in their first meeting, as did Bremerton and North Kitsap. Olympic beat Bremerton and North the second time around, and Shaw hopes that will be the case on Friday vs. PA.

“That’s what we’ll be looking for on Friday — redemption,” Shaw said. “We’re playing much better and Port Angeles is as well.”